Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) (16 page)

“What’s your point?”

“How are you supposed to anticipate
every
possibility? And if creation is a process of trial and error, doesn’t that include you? I mean, don’t you have to try-and-err like everyone else?”

Ping smiled, and his eyes grew a little misty.

Mara grew alarmed. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

He raised a hand and shook his head. “I’m not upset. I’m a little surprised.”

“About what?”

“At the depth of your understanding of the principles we have discussed. You are beginning to understand the true nature of things, and that is going to be your greatest strength. It’s amazing.”

“I’ve had a good teacher.”

“Thank you.”

“
De nada
. Now, tell me. What’s up with the dragon? Is he sleeping or not?”

“He is. At the moment.”

Mara straightened “At the moment? What
exactly
does that mean?”

“The best way to describe it is that sometimes it’s a profound sleep, and, other times, it’s a light sleep. I can sense when he’s restless or on the verge of consciousness.”

“Like at the bakery, with Sam.”

“That episode was unique. I think he actually awoke for a second.”

“What prompted that?”

“Nothing that I can determine.”

“What were you doing at the time?”

“Sam and I were discussing his father.”

“You don’t seem overly concerned about this. Don’t you think we should do something?”

“There’s no point in overreacting. As a matter of fact, I think that could make matters worse. I get the sense that the dragon is as aware of my conscious state as I am of its unconscious one.”

“I don’t know. You’re always making me face up to facts. Maybe you need to do the same.”

“Speaking of which, I think we’ve discussed me enough for now.”

Mara looked up wide-eyed, faux-innocent. “What would you like to talk about?”

Ping nodded downward. “How’s the Tamagotchi doing?”

Mara reached into her pocket and pulled it out. Still cracked with a blank gray screen. “Still not working.”

“Excellent. Have you been focusing on it while we talk about my psyche?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Good. Let’s see how well you do when we are talking about yours.”

“Great, that sounds like a hoot. Aren’t you getting hungry?”

Twisting in the booth across from Ping at Burgerville so she could glance at the menu board across the room, Mara held her phone to her ear with one hand and stuffed a french fry in her mouth with the other. Once she had finished chewing, she rolled her eyes at Ping and said, “Sam, I don’t know if they have the Walla Walla onion rings and the fresh berry shakes. It’s the middle of November. Is that when berries and onions are in season? How do you even know about their seasonal menu? You’ve only been in this realm for like two months.”

She grabbed a napkin, rubbed it on her fingertips and switched the phone to the other ear. “How about a burger and fries? A half-pound colossal cheeseburger. Is that a real thing?” She spotted it on the board. “Oh, I see it. Yes, I’ll get the largest fries. And a Coke.” She lowered the phone and tapped the screen. “The boy knows his food.”

Ping smiled and absentmindedly shook his head in amazement.

“If he keeps eating like that, he’s going to outgrow this realm by the time he’s fifteen. He says he’s going to play for another half hour, then run by the bakery and catch the bus over to the warehouse.”

“Sounds good.” Ping crumpled up a napkin and made a push-back motion from the table even though the booth was mounted to the floor. He was done eating. “So, tell me. How do you feel about your reading with Melanie Proctor?”

Mara looked annoyed, made a point of taking a sip from her drink and then said, “Why are you so obsessed with that? I told you. It was creepy.”

“There was nothing about your experience that you found informative or interesting at all? She mentioned you were a progenitor. Called you, what was the phrase?
The maker of reality
and—”

“Yeah, yeah, mother of consequence, maker of reality. I was there, remember?” Mara lifted another fry and then dropped it. “Those were variations of the same theme that I’ve heard from you. Maybe she picked up that stuff from the reading with you.”

“Mara, it makes no sense to say Melanie could intuit information from reading me and not get anything from reading you. Why are you being so resistant to this?”

“I can’t say I’m completely comfortable with all this progenitor stuff, but I think I’ve resigned myself to it. I understand on some level I’m stuck with it,” she said. “But, I told you when all of this began, I want to get my life back. I don’t want to make a career out of this stuff. I don’t want to be the headliner in this cosmic metaphysical freak show for the rest of my life.”

“Given the understanding of the metaphysical concepts you demonstrated earlier, I’m surprised that you persist in this attitude. How can you understand the nature of existence to the degree that you do and still be so insistent on denying the obvious? Frankly it’s a little irrational.”

“In case you have forgotten, I’m still a teenager. I’m entitled to be a little irrational. And what’s so obvious?”

“These experiences you’ve been having aren’t just happenstance. They are not occurrences that could happen to another person given different circumstances. They are unique to who and what you are. These people and events are drawn to you because you are a progenitor.”

“Everyone keeps saying that. Even my mother said it the other night, when we were meditating. I want to be left alone.”

“What you want is irrelevant. Your choice is to face up to what is coming or to suffer the consequences of your denial.”

“What do you mean, ‘what is coming’?
What is coming
?”

“Like you said, you were there. You heard what Melanie said.
The Battle for Existence shall be engaged
.”

Mara pointed the straw sticking from the top of her drink by tilting her cup at Ping. “That was a rhetorical flourish, a metaphor. There are not going to be any battles—at least not involving me. No battles, no fighting. It was meaningless, right?”

“She said you were being stalked by an adversary, a nemesis. Then that voice came out of her.
I’m coming
. You can’t ignore these warnings. They have profound implications for you as a progenitor.”

“What are you talking about? Who would want to be my nemesis? I’m a likeable person.”

“You need to take this seriously. I’m concerned about this Battle for Existence she said is being engaged. Your role, metaphysically speaking, is a creative one. With your abilities, you help to shape reality, to help bring about existence.”

“Yeah, so?”

“What if this adversary does the opposite? What if he brings about destruction, chaos?”

“Ping, please don’t tell me that you’re about to say there’s a metaphysical devil out there somewhere.”

“Not a devil, but there are always opposing forces in reality.”

“Yin and yang, good and evil?”

“More like
creative
and
destructive
, I would say.”

“You’re reading a lot into what Melanie said. You think this child’s voice coming out of the radio is a New Age boogeyman threatening me?
I’m coming to kick your butt, Mar-ree
?”

“These opposing forces are referenced in the literature I studied. They were not emphasized, but they were there.”

“Great. What am I supposed to do about it? Grab some crystals and have an exorcism?”

“Somehow I don’t think it will be that simple. The best course of action for you is to resist your natural skepticism and consider these things—events like your reading with Melanie Proctor. They may help you be more prepared if, in the future, you encounter this adversary she mentioned.”

“So you’re saying to keep my eyes open.”

Ping nodded and added, “And your mind.”

“I will try, but that’s not a lot of comfort if there really is something hinky lurking out there.”

“Perhaps we are focusing too much on the negative. Melanie did mention you were being stalked by both misery and joy. There’s at least something positive in that.”

“Great. I’m going to get the plague but survive. That’s something to look forward to.”

Sam kept his eyes turned downward to the rough uneven asphalt as he wove through the narrow alleyways between warehouses, storage facilities and what looked like defunct factories. Streetlights were rare here, and few buildings had their own outdoor lights illuminated, making the trek from the bus stop to Ping’s warehouse a pitch-black one. Sam only had a few blocks to go, but it had started to spritz a little, and he didn’t want to slip or twist an ankle. He could hear the echoes of his footsteps bouncing off the walls around him. It sounded almost like someone was following him, making him shiver a bit. He shook it off and continued around the last corner that took him to the back of Ping’s warehouse.

Sam didn’t bother to look up at the vehicle parked next to the loading dock as he passed and stepped up to the door to enter. As his hand grasped the knob, it felt jagged and loose. It was smashed, and the door ajar. He glanced back at the car and squinted, trying to focus on the detail of the vehicle. It clearly was not Ping’s Toyota Camry; this was a large American luxury car, like a Cadillac.

He quietly pushed open the door and silently entered the warehouse. Inside, in front of the whiteboard, stood two men, one of which Sam recognized. Galinsky, the stout, bald, goonish guy who had stopped by the bakery. He was shaking his head back and forth dejectedly, apparently in response to the other man.

“I don’t know where it all went, Mr. Vanderberg. I told you. I stopped by the ceramics store, and it was gone. There’s a bakery there now, Ping’s Bakery. When I went in, he acted like he didn’t know who I was and that everything was perfectly fine.”

“Are you telling me all that inventory is gone? Is that what you are saying?” the other man said, standing in the lit center of the warehouse floor. He looked a little younger, fitter and better tailored than Galinsky. He waved his arms around the empty space causing his camel trench coat to open and flap as he swung around. “All this stuff—dozens, no, hundreds of crates—just gone.”

“I know. I told you.”

“Did he sell everything?”

“Well, he didn’t sell it out of that bakery of his.”

Vanderberg stopped moving and glared at his partner. “Some of the inventory wasn’t regular ceramics, you know? Some of it belonged to Madrazo’s outfit.”

“I figured as much.” Galinsky’s head bobbed up and down.

“Well, we better find out what happened to it, or we are going to regret it. Some of that stuff was supposed to move up to Seattle next week and catch a boat up to Canada. If it doesn’t show up, we’re going to be on the hook, literally.”

Right then Sam’s cell phone beeped.

Galinsky reached into his jacket, pulled out a handgun and squinted into the darkened warehouse.

Sam tapped his phone and slowly backed toward the door, but his movement drew Galinsky’s attention, and the barrel of the gun zeroed in on him despite the darkness.

“You, back there. Get over here,” Galinsky said, waving with the gun. “I promise you, my bullet can get to you before you can get to that door.”

Sam held up his hands with his phone in one of them and walked toward the lit makeshift classroom. “Don’t shoot. I’m coming.”

Vanderberg stepped toward Sam as he walked into the light. “What are you doing snooping around here, young man?”

“Hey, he’s the kid from the bakery,” Galinsky said. “He knows Ping. Maybe he knows what’s going on.”

Sam caught Galinsky’s eyes and stared intently at him. “You want to put that away,” Sam said, nodding toward the gun.

Galinsky got a slack look on his face and slowly slid the gun back into his jacket.

Vanderberg snorted and said, “Why the hell are you listening to that kid, Carl? Keep a bead on him until we figure out what’s going on.”

Galinsky stared toward Sam and didn’t respond. After a moment, Vanderberg shook Galinsky’s shoulders. Galinsky wavered back and forth, swaying as Vanderberg jostled him.

“He’s not going to listen to you,” Sam said. “He’ll only do what I tell him, for the moment. And so will you.”

Vanderberg’s eyes narrowed, and he said, “Yeah, right. What’s going on here?”

Sam turned and locked his gaze onto Vanderberg. “How do you know Ping?”

For a second, Vanderberg looked defiant, but his expression slackened, and he said, “We are business partners. I supply him with discounted ceramics, and he gives me a cut of the profits under the table.”

“That’s it? Discounted ceramics? Where do you get them?”

“Stolen from warehouses all over the western United States. California mostly. Some are brought in from Mexico.”

“Why ceramics?”

“The inventory is usually kept in low-security warehouses and facilities, easy to get at, and it doesn’t spark major investigations when it goes missing. We’re careful not to take the pricy stuff, and we never take too much at a time. It also provides a good cover for moving other items around the country or even to Canada and Mexico.”

“Like what?” Sam asked.

“Cocaine, heroin, sometimes pot. Occasionally we move stolen art or jewels, but mostly things that can be molded into or hidden in ceramic pieces without drawing a lot of attention.”

“So you’re drug dealers.”

“We don’t sell the stuff. We do logistics, like UPS.”

“You mean smugglers.”

“That would be more accurate.”

“And Ping helps you do this? He’s a part of it?”

“No, we supply him with cheap ceramics, and he gives us a legitimate cover to move stuff around. He doesn’t know what we are moving in and out of this warehouse.”

A clatter came from the back of the warehouse near the door.

Mara called from the darkness. “Sam? Are you okay? What happened to the door? It looks like someone broke in.”

“We’re back here,” Sam called over his shoulder. He waited and listened to their footsteps come toward him.